Nigella Lawson’s Donna Karan habit

Nigella Lawson in Donna Karan at the annual MIPCOM television content market in Cannes, October 2012 Photo: EPA

In light of details released at Isleworth Crown Court today, it is safe to assume that in just about every instance of Nigella Lawson wearing anything made from dark coloured jersey, said jersey came from Donna Karan.

Lawson spent a total of £55,567.68 in 22 transactions over four years in the luxury womenswear label's London and New York stores - that's around £2,526 on average. The TV chef's costly passion for comfortable and flattering fashion has been revealed as her former personal assistants are accused of defrauding her ex-husband Charles Saatchi out of £685,000 spent on his credit cards.

Curvaceous Lawson, who divorced the wealthy art dealer earlier this year, previously described New York Fashion Week designer Karan's black dresses as her ultimate wardrobe staple.

"It stretches. It's as comfortable as a nightie. And it's designed for a woman, not a boy," she told Oprah Winfrey's magazine,
Oprah.

In court last week, Lawson self-deprecatingly declared that she was "not very good on fashion" but joked that "most of what I earn" goes on Karan's wares.

Nigella Lawson in Donna Karan at the Saatchi Gallery opening with 'the Revolution Continues: New Art From China' exhibition party in October 2008
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Photo: Rex

Karan's softly-tailored, body-skimming designs have made her a household name worth somewhere in the region of $400m. She was the woman who invented the "body" and popularised the notion of a capsule wardrobe, dressing everyone from Kate Beckinsale to Charlize Theron on the red carpet.

Yet it's easily possible that Lawson could have inherited much more expensive taste than Donna Karan. The label's dresses range from £800 for a crepe style to £2,800 for a sequinned, floor-skimming show-stopper. Look on Net-A-Porter.com and one can easily pay five times that amount for a frock at the click of a button.

The dresses, of which mother-of-two Lawson is so fond, retail for around £1,000, and a PR executive for the brand confirmed that Nigella has never been on the receiving end of truckloads of freebies. As pictures show, she could be seen lunching outside Scott's restaurant in Mayfair joined by her now ex-husband in one chair and a black Donna Karan bag containing her haul from the nearby Conduit Street boutique in the other.

But Lawson was charitable, too; Anzelle Wasserman, her former PA, arrived at court yesterday wearing a dark mustard Donna Karan coat gifted to her by her employer, who told her it "looks so much nicer on you".

We estimate that Lawson visited Donna Karan every couple of months on average and probably left with a couple of items each time - which, as any wealthy woman in the public eye who has unlocked the holy grail of establishing out what suits her body best will tell you, isn't altogether unreasonable. After all, the one thing most definitely not on trial is Nigella's much-envied sense of style.

Anzelle Wasserman arriving at Isleworth Crown Court on December 10 in the Donna Karan voat given to her by Ms Lawson. Photo: Rex